An Interview with Peter Zinovieff: By Norma Beecroft

Interviewed by Norma Beecroft as part of her ebook, Conversations With Post World War II Pioneers of Electronic Music.Recorded on audio cassette.Digital transfer and editing: William Van Ree

In the world of electronic music, Peter Zinovieff is most famous as the inventor of the VCS3 synthesizer in the late 1960s, made by his company EMS (Electronic Music Studios). This new device became widely used by the noted rock bands and pop artists of the time, and it eventually found its use by the more avant garde composers. Zinovieff himself was a composer, but abandoned this pursuit in favour of developing equipment for use by other composers. By the late 1960s, EMS Ltd. was one of four companies offering commercial synthesizers, the others being ARP, Buchla and Moog. His interest then turned to developing a video synthesizer, which became known as the Spectron.

After almost four decades devoted to the development of electronic equipment, Peter Zinovieff returned to composing, collaborating with a young violinist, Aisha Orazbayeva, in 2011 to produce a concerto for computer and violin.